Fall into good things.

It was fun to give Alex his quilt this past weekend. He certainly has spent enough time at our house that he knows I love to make quilts for people. We gave it to him right before he headed back to school. Even though the weather felt more like summer than fall; he looked pretty happy to be taking his warm quilt back with him. I ended up quilting it with circles, using circle templates and the circle tool from the design station of my machine. I hadn't used the design station before and this was a good opportunity to play around with it. It was okay, but not something I want to use too often. I like using circle templates better and if I had a larger set I think I would have nixed the design station all together and finished all the circles using the larger templates. Using the design station required me to use the back side of the machine which really isn't my preference. It seemed I did a lot of walking back and forth to check my starts and stops. I didn't feel I had the accuracy I did with the templates. As it turned out I ended up back tacking my stitches as opposed to tying and burying at the starts and stops. All in all I liked how it turned out and was happy to finally give it away to Alex. Hopefully, he will enjoy it for many years to come.

Also, a friend of mine is considering a little side catering business. She is the best cook and baker I know. I'm positive her adventure will prosper deliciously.

Simple Postcards

A few postcards were a good activity for yesterday's rainy afternoon. I love to send fabric postcards, people love to get them, I love to get them! It's such a great, feel-good trend. Making them is fun, although, getting the process started can sometimes be labor intensive when making only one special card. Pulling out the supplies, plowing through the fabrics etc... To make things quick, organized and simple, a fellow sistah and Guild member is organizing a fabric postcard swap. Not a swap of the actual finished postcard, but a swap of supplies. We will swap the fun novelty fabrics you see and would love to buy, but only need one 4 x 6 piece. Pre-cut pieces of Timtex or Peltex and pre-labeled post card backs will also be part of the swap. Swaps will begin in October and will occur at intervals during the year, each having a few themes. Such a great idea and I look forward to all of the great fabrics and sharing the spirit through sending more postcards.

Yesterday

Walking
yesterday, I had my ipod and cell phone in my hand. I dropped my cell phone at least three times. Not good, kind of like sitting on my sunglasses again.... I remembered I had a cell phone bag kit that I was going to make for this exact purpose. "Quiltsmart Cell Phone Bag". Marketed as "Easy, Fast and Smart". It's true, this project is so quick and easy... until you realize you've stitched the black hook and loop closure too far down on the front of the pouch. Hence the leaf 'cover up' and fiber stuff (that was sitting around waiting to be used). And while I was at it- a few crystals, which gives it a nice sparkle in real life, but don't show up very pretty in a photo.

Also, yesterday was QOV sewing day with the kids. We have half 0f the quilt blocks made. Next week we will begin to sew the blocks together to make a few rows. I know they are looking forward to seeing it come together. We cut our sewing day short as our Gal Pal was heading out to the Red Sox game with her friend's family. Ahhh... I knew I could work this in here somehow..... The Red Sox clinched their playoff spot last night.

Things are good.

Onward.

Wingman

So, do you know what a wingman is? Its the person you travel with when you go somewhere. Like, way back when, when you were going to bars and singles parties. Your wingman was the person that helped you get out of a situation with the skeeby guy and helped you get into a situation with the cute guy. And, you did the same for her. Or him, or whoever you were traveling with. The term wingman is universal, it doesn't need to be gender specific.... it's not wingwoman, or wingperson. Wingman regardless, its okay and we are okay with it. Wingman says - I got your back, I got you covered, and I'm your conscience.....

I went to the World Quilt Show in NH this past weekend with two wingmen, aka; Sistahs. We saw beautiful quilts, lots of art quilts and lots of talent, very inspiring. Where the wingman comes in, is shopping at the vendors. Like, if an embroidery lady is trying to sell you beautiful embroidery stuff that you know (and your wingman knows) you will never use, it is wingman's job to get you away from embroidery lady.... Or, if you have 7 bolts of different pink batiks in your arms, wingman is supposed to help you narrow down the ones you 'really' need as opposed to letting you buy them all, because you want them all. (Then offer you chocolate). Wingman is a rotating position. It's just important that there is always one coherent wingman, because.....

.....As the day goes on all wingmen get tired.... which means: more batiks, silver quilt charms, a jacket pattern, 2 sets of purse handles, purse closures, Featherweight darning foot, and Satin-edge creative sewing foot...... Other than the satin-edge foot, which is supposed to revolutionize my machine applique and post card making, I'm not sure any of my new items will do anything to reduce my UFO status. Ouch, what happened, here?

All in all, it was a fun and inspiring day. Seeing quilts from all over the world is really neat, sharing the love of quilting and fiber arts. Also, it was fun to see other groups traveling together viewing quilts, shopping and wingmanning.

For today, I have some much needed mindless quilting to do..... I need to finish up a quilt which my Guild is putting in a raffle basket to go to the Center in town we use for our sewing events. And, I need to quilt Alex's quilt, as he will be visiting home this weekend. It is beginning to get chilly and it is a nice time to have a new quilt. Or, that is my excuse for not having it finished in June, when he actually graduated and it was hot.....

QOV Sewing Day

Today was QOV sewing day with the kids. They made good progress assembling the blocks. It was fun to see them sew the squares together into the friendship blocks. They were proud of their work and I was proud of them!

Scrap Baskets

People have told me we should catalog our quilts.... So, last night I started my picture inventory. This is my "Scrap Basket" quilt. Feeling a little 'buyer's remorse' after purchasing my longarm, I was determined to use up all the fabrics I had. Only the backing and thread were purchased for this quilt. It was fun to use the old fabrics and remember what I had originally used them for. Once I had used a fabric and a scrap was less than 2", I allowed myself to pitch it. (Although, if I really liked the fabric sometimes I found myself taking it back and thinking- this might make a good leaf, flower, bug or something....Ugh, I know I'm pathetic.) One of the fabrics a friend remembered using on her (now college-aged) daughter's dresses when they were young. I had spent a lot of time quilting this quilt and it was the first quilt I put that much longarm quilting into. It was fun to see it come to life, but I was happy to be done. When I blocked it, one of the fabrics ran. I was able to get the color out of the front using Sew Clean, but there is a small dye stain on the back which I have left. After receiving my judges notes back from MQX, I was tempted to go in and change some things on the quilt. I thought about it for some time and decided to leave the quilt as is. It shows where I was at the time I made the quilt and I'm okay with it. I have since allowed myself the luxury of purchasing a stack of luscious batiks to use on a new quilt I'd like to try and enter into MQX 2009. The stack is sitting in my glass cabinet, untouched..... Soon, I will either need to begin the quilt or just be satisfied admiring the pretty fabrics. We shall see- life is busy and time flies....

A Somber Day

I like to work in the quiet. And this day, I seemed to like it more. A somber day of remembrance. I worked on a customer's quilt which is white/purple and green. It has a lot of white and she wanted feathers in all open, white areas. For some reason it felt good to lay down those feathers on the white fabric using white thread. Someone recently told me that quilted feathers reminded them of angel's wings. Maybe today the feathers were angel's wings. There were hundreds and hundreds more to go. She has two identical quilts for me to do........ It's no longer quiet, I can hear my son and his friend running and laughing in the front yard. That is nice. They are young and innocent. Soon, we will leave to see some of my older son's game, then off to a practice, home, supper, home-work and bed. We are lucky to have the freedom to do all the things we love.

Quilt of Valor Project

To celebrate National Sewing Month, my son and I decided to teach our Gal Pal how to sew. Today, we started a Friendship Star quilt which we plan to donate to Quilts of Valor. Both kids (10 yr-old) will donate an afternoon/ week in order to complete our project. I'm so proud of them as the weather is still nice outside (although it did rain today...) and they are both so busy with school and sports. This is a nice opportunity for us to spend time together while learning a new skill. My son has been around the sewing machine for many years so he's actually a pro. Our Gal Pal is a quick study and was putting triangle squares together in no time!

Sistah-hood

Yesterday a few of the sistahs got together for some chatting and sewing time. We are a diverse group of women who found each other through our love of quilting. When we can, we try to get together to share our stories (good and bad) and gain quilting inspiration. We are as different as we are alike. I worked on finishing the blocks for my friend Alex's quilt. It is his graduation quilt which he will get some time during this freshman year.... hopefully sooner than later. The blocks in the picture look ugly but up close they are combination of unusual fabrics that I had collected for another project. I re-purposed them into Alex's quilt as he likes brown. I used my beloved Featherweight (a story for another day) to piece the blocks. I think I will quilt it with circles; simple, quick and fun.

Quilted Journal

I wanted to practice some background filler work which will go around applique. I then used the practice panel to make a journal cover. The journal has plain white paper where I like to practice quilting designs and just plain doodle.

First Entry 9/2/08

So, I decided to take the plunge and start a blog.... I did get some things figured out. I tried to post a picture and it is enormous. I will spend some time fixing that later. It is a picture of my Guild's Challenge this past July. The title was "How Does your Garden Grow?" My quilt is named -Compass Rose. More later, as for now I have to go do some quilting....